Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Cheers and Jeers for Condé Nast

In its March/April issue, Good magazine offers a list of “the 51 best magazines ever,” which includes some eclectic choices, some praise and a couple of sharp jabs at the company that employs the “bigshot editor” who wrote the list’s introduction.

That editor is Graydon Carter, who runs Vanity Fair for Condé Nast, which makes repeat appearances on the list, with The New Yorker at No. 2 (“a consistently brilliant editorial vision”) and Mr. Carter’s magazine at No. 31 (“If culture is the collection of stories we tell about ourselves, Vanity Fair might just be our greatest raconteur”). But the company does not escape unscathed.

Two magazines, Wired (No. 8) and Details (No. 17), are pointedly included only for the eras preceding their acquisitions by Condé Nast. According to Good, the publisher’s 1998 purchase of Wired “gradually sapped the infectious energy that so characterized Wired’s early years,” while Details “went on to have countless identity crises, and no longer comes even close to downtown cool.”

And despite its inclusion on the list, Vogue also takes a few hits. At No. 45, “it hasn’t been the same since 1971, when they canned the infinitely quotable Diana Vreeland.” Adding to the insults, Good’s editors placed Vogue one notch below Lucky, the Condé Nast shopping magazine. (A Vogue spokesman said in an e-mail message, “Vogue is thrilled to be a part of Good magazine’s ‘list of 51 best magazines ever.’ ”)

Mr. Carter wrote only the essay preceding the list and had no involvement in the selection, ordering or descriptions of the magazines, according to a spokeswoman for Vanity Fair. (Spy magazine, which was co-founded by Mr. Carter, ranks seventh and is praised for its “immeasurable” impact on American culture.)

In his introduction, Mr. Carter reserves his criticism for his old employers at Time Inc., singling them out as an example of the big magazine companies that “are run these days not by people who love magazines but by people in search of profit.”